Before the summer of 2023, Indy Glover was a lively little girl with a bright laugh and endless energy. She was five years old, healthy, and happily moving through childhood in Whitstable, Kent. Then, without warning, everything changed.
Just days before her fifth birthday, Indy suffered a life-threatening seizure at home. Her body turned blue. She stopped breathing. For ten agonising minutes, her parents, Hayley Davies and Paul, performed CPR while waiting for the ambulance to arrive.
“It just came out of nowhere,” Hayley recalled. “She’d always been fit and healthy. I picked her up from school, it had been really hot, and I could tell something wasn’t right. What happened flipped our whole world upside down.”
Indy survived that terrifying episode, but it marked the beginning of a nightmare that would consume the next year of her life.
In the weeks and months that followed, seizures became a daily reality. At first there were a few. Then ten. Then twenty. Eventually, more than fifty seizures a day. Some lasted up to an hour and a half. None of the medications worked.
Amazingly, Indy remained aware. She could even warn her parents when one was coming.
“She’d say, ‘Mum, one is coming,’” Hayley said. “Then when it ended, she’d say, ‘It’s gone.’ It happened day and night.”
Doctors initially treated Indy for epilepsy at QEQM Hospital in Margate. Medication after medication was added, adjusted, increased. At one point, Indy was on five anti-epileptic drugs, three times a day. Instead of helping, the heavy medication robbed her of her childhood.
“She had zero quality of life,” Hayley said. “She was almost comatose on the sofa or in a hospital bed every day. She had no spark. She was just a shell of herself.”
The strain on the family was relentless. Indy’s seizures came around the clock, leaving her parents permanently exhausted. Ambulances became a regular sight outside their home. Hayley had a two-year-old son as well, barely sleeping, barely coping. She put her jewellery design business on hold entirely to focus on keeping her daughter alive.
Deep down, Hayley knew this wasn’t just epilepsy.
“As a mum, I just knew there was something more,” she said. “Something in my gut kept telling me there was something else going on.”
After months of pushing, Indy was referred to specialists in London. At Evelina London Children’s Healthcare, working alongside teams from Great Ormond Street Hospital and King’s College Hospital, doctors began investigating further. Indy underwent repeated MRIs, lumbar punctures, and extensive monitoring. Electrodes were attached to her head while her parents meticulously logged every seizure.
Despite everything, Indy never cried.
“She was incredible,” Hayley said.
Eventually, scans revealed a subtle enlargement on one side of Indy’s brain. Doctors couldn’t be certain what they were dealing with without a biopsy. That meant brain surgery. And only during surgery would they know exactly what was wrong.
The specialists believed the seizures were originating from Indy’s left temporal lobe. Their recommendation was drastic: remove it.
The risks were enormous. Damage to her eyesight. Her mobility. Her memory. Her ability to learn. Her personality. The doctors had to decide whether the benefits outweighed the risks. And if surgery wasn’t possible, there were no other options.
“That was the most terrifying point,” Hayley said. “If she couldn’t have surgery, there was nothing left. None of the drugs were working. Every seizure was damaging her brain. I knew she couldn’t go on like that.”
In January, six months after Indy’s first seizure, she was placed on the waiting list for surgery — with a warning it could take up to a year. But Indy didn’t have a year. Her seizures worsened. She was being admitted to hospital every week.
By late February, she was rushed to Great Ormond Street as an emergency. Within days, surgeons took her into theatre.
The operation lasted seven hours.
During surgery, doctors discovered extensive scarring. They removed almost a quarter of Indy’s brain, including her left temporal lobe and hippocampus — the area responsible for memory. The diagnosis was finally clear: temporal lobe sclerosis, the true cause of her devastating seizures.
When Indy woke up, she had two more seizures — expected given the trauma her brain had endured. And then something extraordinary happened.
She never had another one.
Two years later, Indy remains completely seizure-free.
Recovery was slow. Her balance and short-term memory were affected at first. It took a full year to wean her off the heavy medications. She missed an entire year of school. But today, seven-year-old Indy has made a full recovery.
“The surgery was a miracle,” Hayley said. “She had thousands of seizures before it, and it’s a miracle they didn’t cause permanent damage. It was like watching her be reborn. She was laughing again. Her personality never changed. She’s still her.”
Doctors believe Indy’s brain rewired itself, shifting functions from the damaged left side to the right — a remarkable example of a child’s resilience.
Now, Indy only needs check-ups every six months. She is thriving. And her story has inspired something new.
Hayley has launched MyRealFairies, a small business creating fairy companion kits designed to help children feel comforted and creative during difficult times. The idea was born from the magical messages Hayley used to leave for Indy in hospital. For every kit sold, one is donated to a child at Evelina London or Great Ormond Street — the hospitals that saved Indy’s life.
Today, Indy Glover is living proof that even after unimaginable trauma, childhood can return. From a little girl once trapped in constant seizures to a bright, joyful seven-year-old, her story is one of fear, faith, and the extraordinary power of the human brain to heal.